Miro Maattanen (left) and Santeri Siren avenge an earlier setback in the Nanjing 2014 Youth Olympic Games with a quarter-final Monday over Uruguay.

Nanjing, China, August 25, 2014 - Miro Maattanen and Santeri Siren avenged an earlier setback in the men’s Beach Volleyball competition at the Nanjing 2014 Youth Olympic Games here Monday as the Finnish pair advanced to the semi-finals along with a highly-regarded team from Venezuela by winning afternoon quarter-final matches.

After losing a three-set pool play match a week ago to Marco Cairus and Mauricio Vieyto of Uruguay, Maattanen and Santeri won the elimination meeting 2-1 (21-18, 19-21 and 18-16) in a 49-minute match on Court No. 2 at the Beach Volleyball venue in Nanjing Sports Park Complex.

The young Finns will now have a “rest” day Tuesday to prepare for Wednesday’s medal matches for men as Maattanen and Santeri will play the winner of a Monday evening match between Oleg Stoyanovskiy/Artem Yarzutkin of Russia and reigning FIVB under-19 world champions Arthur Mariano and George Wanderley of Brazil.

With the women’s first two quarter-final matches on the center court Monday afternoon where pairs from Canada and Brazil posted wins over teams from the United States and Argentina, respectively, Tigrito Gomez and Peter Hernandez of Venezuela won the second men’s quarter-final match on Court No. 2.

Gomez and Hernandez, who placed third earlier this month at the FIVB U19 worlds in Portugal, ousted Sergio Figueroa and Daniel Rivera of Puerto Rico 2-1 (21-11, 14-21 and 15-11) in 43-minutes. The Venezuelans will play either Santiago Aulisi/Leandro Aveiro of Argentina or Niklas Rudolf/Eric Stadie of Germany in Wednesday’s second semi-final match.

The women’s “final four” matches will be played Tuesday as teams from Austria, Russia, Germany and the Czech Republic vying for the final two spots with Canada and Brazil.